New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit the coast and the flood defense systems broke.

ALEC promotes many policies, programs and pieces of legislation contingent on denying climate science. Here are examples of ALEC is denying climate change:

ALEC Invites Climate Deniers To Annual Meetings

At its most recent meeting, groups like the Heartland institute and nonprofit Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which promotes unregulated development, provided talking points to legislators. Such talking points include that there is no need to reduce carbon emissions and that in fact they are healthy, that there is no scientific consensus about human-caused climate change, and that the likely benefits of man-made global warming (which doesn’t exist) exceed the likely costs.

ALEC Writes Model Legislation With Corporations To Prevent Action

ALEC’s “model legislation” on climate says that while human activity has led to climate change and global warming, this could be beneficial. It suggests establishing a commission to do more research, even though the research has been done and confirmed, thus delaying action indefinitely.

ALEC’s “model legislation” on science education promotes the “teach both sides” approach favored by anti-evolution types when there is no scientific debate on climate change. Its so-called “Environmental Literacy Improvement Act” requires that a range of perspectives be offered and that students be encouraged to explore even erroneous contentions to form their own opinions. Tennessee, Texas, South Dakota and Louisiana have all passed nearly identically worded bills, crafted by ALEC, opening the door to bringing climate denial into science classrooms.

ALEC's Leadership Includes Climate Deniers

Prominent ALEC leaders are climate deniers. Its incoming national chair, state rep. Phil King (R-TX) has said,”I think the global warming theory is bad science” and has accused President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency of pushing “unproven” technologies intended not for the “stated objective of combating climate change” but to crush the coal industry. Its current chair, state rep. John Piscopo (R-CT), claims, “There are ice ages and periods of warming throughout Earth’s history. We could be in a period between ice ages. It’s not human-induced, not catastrophic. It’s nothing to panic over. I think it’s a move by government to take over and tax our energy system.” And Ohio state senator Bill Seitz, an ALEC board member, was the prime mover behind Ohio’s recent move to freeze its renewable energy standards, the first state in the U.S. to do so. He has referred to the standards as “some Stalinist government mandating” and is pushing for permanent total repeal.

ALEC Has A Long History of Denying Climate Change

ALEC has a long history of denying climate science, including a 2005 report called “Top 1o Myths about Global Warming,” which appeared on its website for many years. Among the “myths” it purported to debunk: that human activity causes global warming, that extreme weather events are caused by global warming, that there’s been any significant warming at all in the last century and that what it calls “carbon reduction schemes” will be relatively inexpensive.